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Chronic congestion is now a fact of life in many cities. Today, there are an estimated one billion vehicles globally. With car ownership set to double in the next 15 to 20 years, the world's cities face a gridlocked future.

Municipal governments are turning to road user charging to ease traffic on city streets. But it's not just the need to cut traffic jams that's driving the move towards road charging. Increasingly, environmental concerns are part of the equation too.

The emergence of congestion charging

Today's congestion charging is zone-based rather than route-based. Typically, access fees are applied to a defined area - such as a city centre - rather than just a single road asset. And unlike traditional tolling, the primary function of congestion charging is to reduce traffic.
"Historically, congestion charging has being driven by the increasing difficulty of travelling inside the city. The city as an economic centre was heading for collapse in many cases" says Philippe Monier, Thales Director of Road Business Development. "Primarily, though, this approach is about making the city work as an economic centre, rather than protecting the environment."

The quest for greener cities

Singapore was the first city to introduce urban road charging back in 1975. In Europe, Norway led the market in the development of congestion pricing, with the port city of Bergen adopting a charging system in 1986.

These early schemes were driven by the need to keep traffic moving. But Kyoto pushed environmental arguments for road charging up the political agenda. Environmental considerations were an important component in the decision to introduce congestion charging in London and Stockholm. In New York, meanwhile, the issue of sustainability is a key element in the case for proposed congestion pricing in the Manhattan district.

Environmental benefits

The evidence is that road user charging does have positive environmental effects. Road pricing provides a disincentive to drive and reduces the number of vehicles on the road. Fewer vehicles means lower emissions. It also means that the vehicles continuing to travel into the city operate more efficiently. Emission-based charging allows additional fine-tuning. It's a virtuous circle.

"There are two issues in terms of the benefits of road charging" says Bernard Lamy, Design Authority for Transportation Systems in Thales. "The first is encouraging the population to move from private transport to public transport. But it's not just that. If you make it more expensive to travel at the busiest times by using dynamic tariffing, it spreads the traffic peak over a longer period. That increases the fluidity of the traffic and as a consequence pollution is reduced. Those are direct effects of congestion pricing."

"There is also potential to use the funds raised by congestion pricing to favour environmental measures or take new actions in terms of making transportation user friendly" says Mr Lamy. "This might include increasing the capacity of public transport. And I think that's a key issue if you think of who's doing congestion charging - or who is planning to do it. It can really turn into environmental improvements if there is sufficient capacity in public transport."

Making it happen

As a leading systems integrator, Thales offers mastery of the full gamut of technologies needed to build and drive road charging systems. These include contactless tag-and-beacon technology (DSRC) with freeflow capability, satellite positioning (GNSS) and mobile communications, as well as conventional CCTV number plate recognition systems currently used for enforcement.

Thales has unrivalled global experience in developing and deploying seamless solutions to manage road traffic. The company's electronic toll collection systems are now used on more than 4,000 lanes across some 30 motorways around the world. The Liber-T system, for which Thales is a major equipment provider, is used throughout the French motorway system and provides a dramatic example of road tolling in action at a national level.
Thales also occupies a world-leading position in smart card ticketing technology used in public transport systems throughout Europe, Asia and America. The ability to combine ticketing and tolling is likely to become increasingly important in the development of truly interoperable urban transport systems. The convergence of these technologies could revolutionise mobility in cities, offering citizens real choice with a single ‘mobility card' to pay for all their transport needs - including road charges.

The Thales difference

"The key driver for winning congestion contracts is the ability to provide end-to-end solutions - and not many companies can do that" says Mr Lamy. "Thales is investing heavily in adapting its in-house freeflow motorway and GNSS technologies for urban requirements. It's also one of the few companies that can offer turnkey solutions, including everything from front end equipment to back-office IT systems."

Thales has the ability to build tailor-made solutions from the ground up, including everything from roadside tolling beacons to sophisticated IT systems capable of managing relationships with millions of road users. "We are technology agnostic" says Mr Monier. "But on the other hand, we cannot ignore the technology. To deliver the best solution, you need total understanding of what it is about, and to have the ability to communicate the advantages and drawbacks of different technologies with the customer."

The road ahead

Road pricing represents an important market for Thales. Cities with established congestion charging are now looking to second-generation systems. Meanwhile, the number of cities considering congestion charging for the first time is growing.

"The problems encountered in London, Stockholm and Singapore are found everywhere in large cities" says Mr Monier. "If you look at the way the world is changing, more and more people are living in cities. A company like Thales cannot ignore that. We have the people and the technology to create electronic toll collection systems and we have the technology for GNSS charging systems that allow us to measure the mileage of a car. We master the key technologies in-house and are constantly investing to ensure their suitability in charging schemes both for today and tomorrow. Congestion charging is definitely a key market for Thales, with great potential for us to show both our integration skills and excellence in technological innovation."
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Technology overview

A number of technologies can be used to manage road charging. The interaction of charging technology and the architecture of the charging structure have a powerful influence on the behaviour of motorists. In cities that charge a daily flat fee, for example, drivers have no incentive to stop driving around once they've entered the control zone and the evidence is that emissions may actually increase in some cases. The eventual deployment of time-distance-place charging, which take into account the actual length of the journey, will provide an incentive to drive as little as possible.

DSRC

Better known as tag and beacon, DSRC - which stands for digital short range communications - is a tried and tested interoperable electronic tolling solution that is used both for congestion charging and traditional asset-tolling applications. Charging data is exchanged between a vehicle-mounted tag and a roadside beacon using either an infrared or microwave link.

DSRC is used in Bergen in Norway and is likely to be used in future projects including New York's congestion pricing scheme and London's next-generation congestion charging system.

DSRC + smart card

An enhanced version of conventional tag and beacon. Users insert a stored value smart card into their vehicle's windscreen-mounted DSRC tag unit; charges are deducted from the card when the vehicle passes beneath a roadside beacon.

Because it can be tied in with the same smart cards used to pay for public transport, it's a powerful tool for managing road user behaviour and providing incentives: motorists can be rewarded for not using their vehicles. DSRC + smart card was deployed in Turin for the Winter Olympics and a version is also used in Singapore.

GNSS

GNSS allows for true TDP (time-distance-place) charging. The system is based on GPS satellite positioning technology that ‘tells' the vehicle where it is continuously. Position data is processed by an onboard vehicle unit which uses an always-on mobile communication protocol such as GSM, GPRS or WiMAX to transmit its precise position for charging purposes. Proprietary communications algorithms prevent vehicle data transmissions from overwhelming mobile networks.

GNSS has the advantage of requiring no roadside infrastructure for charging, though some might be required for enforcement purposes. With GNSS, it's possible to base charges on mileage rather than on a flat fee, so it's potentially fairer. It's not restricted to zoned usage either - in theory, the system is scalable from the level of a single street to an entire nation. The only technical drawback is that tall buildings interfere with satellite positioning systems.

Alterations to geographical coverage can be achieved easily through changing back-office software. By extending the scope and extent of charging areas, GNSS makes it possible to manage some of the negative fringe effects of perimeter-based zone charging systems, which can include increased car use immediately outside the control zone.

Satellite positioning can be provided by the existing GPS system and in the future by Europe's Galileo GNSS system. Ultimately, the on-board vehicle units needed for GNSS could be factory-fitted at the time of manufacture. These could also include ITS - intelligent transport system - functions, including dynamic guidance, parking information and emergency warnings.

CCTV

Closed-circuit TV systems combined with automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology are used for enforcement in cities with non-DSRC road charging, such as Stockholm, London and the Maltese capital Valletta. CCTV is also used to monitor and penalise fraudulent road use in cities with tag and beacon charging.

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Environmental benefits

• Lower emissions: Road charging means fewer vehicles and reduced emissions.
• Increased efficiency: Reduced congestion allows the vehicles that continue to use urban roads to operate at a higher level of efficiency.
• Green dividend: Revenue from road charging can be used to pay for improved public transport.